Having no luck with the chariot of damnation, Percy, Annabeth and Tyson had begun to walk. They had emerged from the woods hours ago and night fell as they followed the highway. Restless and tired, Percy outstretched his arm and raised his thumb at the first set of headlights the group had seen for some time. "Percy, what are you doing?" "Hitchhiking" he shot back. Tyson dawned a smile, "Good idea brother, I've actually hitchhiked a lot." "People actually picked you up?" asked Annabeth in disbelief. "Only when I had my sunglasses on and usually it was farmers who would make me sit in the back with their animals." Tyson shook his head and continued to smile. Percy attempted to diffuse Annabeth, "We only need to get to a payphone or motel, at least close enough to civilization we can actually do something other than walk. If it was important enough for Hermes himself to come to camp, I've got to think we're on some sort of clock here." Annabeth had trouble refuting his logic as the headlights glided to the side of the road behind them. Behind the wheel of the mid-nineties Toyota sat a rather fair blond woman, middle aged and pleasant; "Where ya'll headed?" she inquired of the group. "Blue Marsh Lake Pennsylvania ma'am, but we'd just be grateful for a ride to a motel, or if you could let us use your cellphone that would be amazing." Percy sounded exhausted. "Well hop in darlings, cause this thing is as dead as all get-out" Thw woman held up her smartphone and then dropped it into the center console. Annabeth still felt uneasy, but she too was growing tired, and wasn't about to make a scene or separate from Percy. Percy opened the back door for Annabeth, letting her into the vehicle. "Awww well aren't you just a sweet little gentlemen" Exclaimed the driver as group piled in. Annabeth and Percy were seated in the back, Tyson in the front. Tyson thanked the woman and then Percy made their introductions, "My name is Percy, this is Annabeth, and that's my brother Tyson. The driver looked to her right at Tyson as she pulled away from the curb, stomping on the accelerator. "You must be the cool one", she said motioning to Tyson, "I wear my suuuunglasses at night!" she sang with a chuckle. "My friends call me Edna, so ya'll can too." She responded in pleasant tone. "Ya'll better buckle up, it's the law." Click, click, click, and all three were secured in their seats. Trying to get comfortable, and closer to Percy, Annabeth stirred in her seat, wrapping her arm around Percy's and laying her head on his shoulder; and then made a frightening discovery. In Edna's hasty takeoff from the roadside, some things had slid out from beneath her seat at Annabeth's feet, where she observed something all too familiar; a bottle of Mist. Annabeth drove her elbow into Percy's ribs and nodded toward the floorboards, drawing his attention to the bottle on the floor. They exchanged a quick, concerned glance. "Where did you say you were from again?" asked Percy. "I didn't" growled the driver. Growing more concerned, an emboldened Annabeth asked, "That's a lovely perfume you're wearing, what's it called?" Edna peered up into the rearview mirror and pursed her lips; then she locked the doors. "Smart girl" she blurted. Rather abruptly, a serpent's tail wrapped around Tyson's unwitting neck, smashing his face into the dashboard rendering him unconscious. " My friends call me Edna … ya'll aint really my friends. My full name is Echidna." The Driver's sweet southern accent disappeared. "You know the niece of Medusa, the woman you decapitated. We are going to Blue Marsh Lake, where you will all die, but hopefully not before me and Scylla get a chance to torture you." Echidna then pulled a bottle from her glove box and sprayed Percy and Annabeth in the face as they frantically pawed at the latches of their belts and the rear door handles. They looked into each other's eyes with helplessness; their vision blurred and then closed in, they were sent into a deep sleep by whatever the vengeful monster had sprayed on them.
Grover awoke back in camp to a pounding on his door; a pounding so loud he thought whoever produced it might simply put their fist through the door. Startled and stumbling he rolled out of bed and opened the portal to the outside world. No sooner had he unlatched it, Clarisse came barging in. "I need your help." Grover rubbed his eyes, and then slapped himself, "Did you just ..." Clarisse was in no mood, "Tell anyone I asked and I will drag you to the sea of monsters and feed you to Charybdis myself." Sitting back on his bed, Grover slumped his shoulders and shook his head in an attempt to wake himself. "Help with what?" Clarisse grabbed his hand, pulling him towards the door, "A thousand piece 3-D puzzle with no box or picture to work off." Outside Grover's cabin was the usual hustle and bustle of camp half-blood. Being dragged through the crowd, Grover asked, "What puzzle exactly, I mean I can't imagine you going from defeating Cronus, with PERCY'S help of course, to doing puzzles." Clarisse rolled her eyes without breaking step or missing a beat. "Look, Chiron and Mr. D seem to think all the rubble in the boxes Hermes delivered was a statue, that they want put back together. So you're going to help me." The pair continued to the front garden of Big House where Clarisse had inventoried the packages. Altogether, in the boxes, the packages formed a rectangle, about eight feet long , four feet wide, and four feet high. Both Clarisse and Grover crossed their arms. Turning to Clarisse, Grover asked, "Ok, so where do we start?" Clarisse dropped reached to her back drawing her sword. "Do you see this? I fight. I have no clue". Replacing her sword, Grover interjected, "I guess we start like any other puzzle. Empty the boxs, find the corner pieces, and go from there." Clarisse's lips rose in the middle toward the bottom of her nose, the corners tilted down, and she cocked her head toward Grover, as if to say "good idea" without a word. Both drew their daggers and began ripping into the pile of boxes. Clarisse and Grover spent the rest of the day opening the boxes, and placing their contents in to piles; separating them, sculpted pieces in one area and the ones with jagged edges, the center pieces, into a pile. When they finished night had fallen again, both looked pleased with their work, but slightly determined. There were far more pieces with rough edges, this would not be an easy puzzle to assemble.